Definitions for SERFsɜrf

This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word SERF

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serf, helot, villein(noun)

(Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord

Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

serf(Noun)

A semifree peasant of a low hereditary class, slavishly attached to the land owned by a feudal lord and required to perform labour, enjoying minimal legal or customary rights.

serf(Noun)

A similar agricultural labourer in 18th and 19th century Europe.

serf(Noun)

A worker unit.

Origin: From serf, from servus, perhaps of Etruscan origin

Webster Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

Serf(verb)

a servant or slave employed in husbandry, and in some countries attached to the soil and transferred with it, as formerly in Russia

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SERF

A spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.
The name for the technique comes from the fact that spin exchange relaxation, a mechanism which usually scrambles the orientation of atomic spins, is avoided in these magnetometers. This is done by using a high density of Potassium atoms and a very low magnetic field. Under these conditions, the atoms exchange spin quickly compared to their magnetic precession frequency so that the average spin interacts with the field and is not destroyed by decoherence.
A spin-exchange relaxation-free magnetometer achieves very high magnetic field sensitivity by monitoring a high density vapor of alkali metal atoms precessing in a near-zero magnetic field. The sensitivity of SERF magnetometers improves upon traditional atomic magnetometers by eliminating the dominant cause of atomic spin decoherence caused by spin-exchange collisions among the alkali metal atoms. SERF magnetometers are among the most sensitive magnetic field sensors and in some cases exceed the performance of SQUID detectors of equivalent size. A small 1 cm³ volume glass cell containing potassium vapor has reported 1 fT/√Hz sensitivity and can theoretically become even more sensitive with larger volumes. They are vector magnetometers capable of measuring all three components of the magnetic field simultaneously.